“What do you do for work, Ed?”

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Dear Friends,

What do I do for work? Great question. A lot of Boomers are retired, yet I remain gainfully employed — as a full-time volunteer. If you’re inclined to support my work, either donating, spreading the word, listening, reading, or providing feedback, my colleagues and I (all volunteers) would be grateful:

1. The Fallon Forum. Our platform includes a radio show that airs on seven stations, a podcast, a weekly email blog, and a Substack post. DONATE HERE. 

2. Marcher, Walker, Pilgrim — my memoir from the 2014 Great March for Climate Action. I’d sold about 1,000 copies when COVID took the wind out of that sail. The book is owned by Climate March. All proceeds go to climate action, and we’ve still got a pile of books to unload.

3. Bold Iowa. In 2016, I founded this group to fight the Dakota Access Pipeline and the abuse of eminent domain. Now we’re fighting Summit’s CO2 pipeline, and in 2019, over a hundred Iowa climate voters bird-dogged presidential candidates. Most memorably, after asking Joe Biden to clarify his stand on pipelines, he grabbed me by the lapels and told me to vote for someone else. I didn’t. 

4. Birds & Bees Urban Farm is the non-profit Kathy and I founded in 2018 to teach city dwellers how to turn their yards into dinner. We grow/forage half our food and teach classes, give presentations, and encourage the City of Des Moines to increase its commitment to urban agriculture. We’ve had some success, with the City recently agreeing to plant a 40-tree fruit orchard at Drake Park.

5. Chopin Nocturnes. A healthy work schedule includes balance and diversity. For me, that means activism, advocacy, journalism, farming, and music. Over the past four years, I’ve memorized and recorded all 21 Chopin Nocturnes. So far this year, Kathy and I have hosted five house parties, combining a short concert with a conversation about relocalizing food production. 

6. Des Moines Irish Session. I help “manage” a self-described anarcho-syndicalist Irish musical collective. Seven or eight times each month, traditional musicians gather somewhere in the Des Moines metro to play and have fun. No politics. Just music. Even the most politically engaged need some of that in our lives. And this is cool: the Des Moines Irish Session might be featured in a Guinness ad later this year. 
 

So if you see a way (or two, or three) to help support the work, my team and I would be most grateful.

In other news, this week’s program kicks off with a jaunt into my Irish music world. That’s followed by a collective pat-on-the-back of the more than five million Americans who participated in No Kings Day actions. 

In Des Moines, over 7,000 people gathered for an entirely peaceful rally. There were actions in 2,000 cities and towns across the country, featuring many powerful signs, statements, and messages. Here’s my favorite (from an image found online from Ocean Beach, San Francisco).

I want to emphasize how important it is that the movement against authoritarianism must remain peaceful and continue to develop strategies for nonviolent engagement. Here’s a piece authored in part by my good friend, Paul Engler, that’s well-worth reading: Trump’s Manufactured Crisis and the Urgency of Strategic Nonviolence.

CLICK HERE FOR THIS WEEK’S PROGRAM, OR BELOW FOR INDIVIDUAL SEGMENTS:

(07:57) The urgency of non-violent action – LISTEN
(22:33) Growing food among solar arrays – LISTEN
(34:37) Walking across the Great Plains – LISTEN
(53:52) Bootlegging helped rural Iowans survive the 1920s farm crash, with Kathy Byrnes. – LISTEN

Thanks for reading, listening, and taking action.

— Ed Fallon

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